PURCHASE, N.Y. - Shaquan Turk joined a select group in Eastern Men's Basketball history passing the 1,000 point milestone in an exciting 82-81 victory over Manhattanville College on Wednesday night. Turk entered the game only five points short of the career milestone and scored 17 points in the game to accomplish the feat.

"It's a great accomplishment, but it's an individual accomplishment," said Turk. "I would like to thank all my teammates and my coaches, Coach Stewart and Coach McNelley for believing in me and helping me build my game so that this was possible." 

In the early minutes of the game, Turk missed a few shots, and his only point came from the free throw line when he converted one of two attempts to make it a 4-2 game in favor of the Eagles. After a 3-pointer with just over 11 minutes to play in the first half Turk sat only one point away from the milestone. At the 6:33 mark of the first half Eastern (8-8, 2-3 MAC Freedom) held a 39-16 lead. Turk drove the lane and hit a layup to not only give the Eagles a 41-16 lead but to give himself 1,001 points. 

"I just saw it go in, and I ran down the court," continued Turk. "At that point we were up big, and it was just another layup for me. I didn't really feel anything else, to be honest; I just knew I had to get back down the court." 

"It was just a matter of time," said Head Coach Eric McNelley. "At the end of the day he is a super talented player, he has been working extremely hard, and he is leading us. Tonight he wasn't one hundred percent but was out there battling for his teammates." 

Turk is the second player this season to achieve this incredible milestone. Senior Malcolm Garrison accomplished the same feat in Miami against UMass Dartmouth just over a month ago. 

Turk's milestone was part of a giant first half for Eastern as a whole. After Manhattanville (9-7, 2-3 MAC Freedom) had taken an early 2-0 lead, the Eagles came roaring back going on a 41-12 run that was capped off by Turk's big accomplishment. The Valiants did manage to rally back and close the half out on a 14-3 run to cut the Eastern lead to 47-33 at the break.     

Overall Eastern made 11 3-pointers in the half going 11-of-16, shooting (.687). Jonathan Tolber was 4-of-4 while Malcolm Garrison was 4-of-6 from 3-point range.    

"We played great in the first half," continued McNelley. "To shoot 11-of-16 is impressive and it was a matter of time. We are a great shooting team, and we came in loose and ready to go. I told the guys before the game that our time is coming if we just keep shooting the shots will start to fall and tonight they did."

In the second half, however, Manhattanville managed to come all the way back to take a 73-70 lead before Garrison hit a game-tying 3-pointer. After another tie at 75-75, Garrison finished off a layup on a great backdoor cut to give the Eagles a 77-75 lead.    

"Sustaining a lead is hard especially a big lead you start playing cautious," continued McNelley. "I think we did that at times tonight. At the end of the day though I told the guys I don't care if the final score is 122-121 as long as we win and the final score just happened to be 82-81."    

  

The Valiants responded with a 3-pointer, to make the score 82-78 with 1:19 left to play. With 20 seconds left to go in the game, the Eagles held a slim 82-81 lead. After a pair of missed free throws, the Valiants got the ball back with just six seconds left to go in the game. Anthony Maestre got the rebound and dribbled to half court before releasing a last minute prayer, but it was not answered as it hit the front of the rim.  

Turk finished the game with 17 points and 11 rebounds to post his third double-double of the season. He currently sits at 1,012 points for his career. Garrison scored 23 points going 7-of-15 from the field shooting (.466) while going 5-of-10 from the 3-point range. Jonathan Tolber and Victor Peña each scored 13 points to round the double-digit scoring for Eastern. 

"It took everyone tonight," concluded Turk. "We got a great contribution from everyone from Malcolm to Marquise, to everybody. Usually, we have trouble holding on to leads, but we pulled this one out, and it was a just a great win." 

Maestre led all Manhattanville scorers with 27 points. Alex Tuci posted a double-double scoring 20 points and recording 19 rebounds while Willie Britton rounded out the double-digit scoring with ten points of his own. 

"It's a great win, but we need to forget about this one and just move on," concluded McNelley. "We have another game coming up, and we need to learn from this one and just move forward. We'll enjoy this bus ride home though for sure." 

Eastern hosts Misericordia on January 23rd at 3 pm.